Latest news with #lawschool
New York Times
06-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
A Law School's Award for a Racist Paper
To the Editor: Re 'Law Student Argued 'We the People' Meant Just White People. He Won an Award' (front page, June 22): I have been a lawyer for 50 years, and I was bemused to read how Judge John L. Badalamenti of Florida's most prestigious law school gave a student, Preston Damsky, an award for his essay claiming that the rights recognized in the Constitution apply only to white people, based on 'original intent.' From my own experience in law school, I know that papers are graded on merit based on the quality of writing and research, and not the political slant of the writer, which is as it should be. Still, I cannot understand how Judge Badalamenti could even give a passing grade for Mr. Damsky's paper, let alone declare it the best essay. I, personally, would give Mr. Damsky an F for the glaring omission in his argument. That, obviously, would be the 14th Amendment, which was specifically intended to confer all constitutional rights, privileges and immunities on people of color, in addition to 'all persons,' without qualification as to race or gender, born or naturalized in the United States. Yes, when the Constitution was created in 1787, and when the first 10 amendments were ratified in 1791, the framers were all white males, as was the electorate, but that was not graven in stone and is now wholly irrelevant. The Constitution created in 1787, at Article V, expressly provides for its amendment by 'we the people,' which was in fact done in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified and thereby dispelled any notion, once and for all time, that the Constitution protects only white citizens. Richard LatimerFalmouth, Mass. To the Editor: Advocates of 'institutional neutrality' argue that a student's paper, however offensive its argument, must be judged on its scholarly merits, not its politics. As a former university professor, I agree. But judging a paper on academic criteria does not preclude a faculty member from commenting on the morality of its content. One of my undergraduate friends was perplexed by the comment his professor had written on his paper next to the grade. My friend had received an A, but the comment read, 'This paper is evil.' The paper gave a generally positive assessment of Niccolò Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine political theorist who advised princes and statesmen to be utterly ruthless in their pursuit of power. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Wall Street Journal
25-06-2025
- Wall Street Journal
‘Unplug' Review: Living Phone Free
Don't you sometimes wish that you could throw away your smartphone? You'd be free from the doom spiral of news and social media, and more engaged with the people around you. You'd notice beautiful everyday things. Life would be so much calmer. But then what would you do without the authenticator apps, and the banking apps, and that great camera, and your work emails? It's unthinkable. Or is it? With 'Unplug,' Richard Simon, a journalist and director of website strategy at Georgetown University's law school, is here to tell you that it can be done, and to explain how. As in a 12-step program, the first thing to do is to admit that you have a problem. Our relationships with our phones are described in this book with the language of substance addiction (you need a 'digital detox') or relationship therapy (you need a 'phone breakup'), and the cure is quasireligious: You should 'ritualize' things like reading or even daydreaming. Mr. Simon recommends beginning by going cold turkey: He switched off his own smartphone for 12 months, having warned friends and family, and advises the reader to disconnect for at least 60 days. Once you have struggled through the worst of the 'withdrawal,' you can decide whether you want to use a 'basic phone' (one without internet services) or perhaps try to 'reintegrate' the smartphone (as though it were a paroled prisoner being helped to live again in civil society) while being more 'mindful' of how you use it. There is pseudoscientific talk of the neurotransmitter dopamine as the molecule that smartphones evilly target and how the technology manipulates us on a chemical level. In Mr. Simon's view, addicts should be wary of behaviors that replace one source of surging dopamine with another—if you dump your phone but watch endless YouTube videos on your laptop, you're no better off.
Reuters
23-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Student loan caps could hit minorities, low-ranked law schools the hardest
June 23 (Reuters) - Aspiring attorneys who can't afford full law school tuition could end up paying more for their degrees while some might get shut out of law school altogether under a pending Republican proposal to cap student loan borrowing, according to three legal education finance experts and three law deans. The budget reconciliation bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May and is currently under consideration by the U.S. Senate, with proposed annual caps ranging from $50,000 to about $77,000 and aggregate borrowing caps of $150,000 to $200,000 for professional degrees. The House and Senate proposals differ slightly. The current federal loan system allows students to borrow the total amount of their tuition and living expenses at fixed interest rates. An earlier federal cap on graduate loans was eliminated in 2006 under George W. Bush's presidency. The proposed cap would require students who hit the limit to secure private loans if they need more money, which could mean higher interest rates for borrowers. It would apply to all professional degree programs, but students pursuing high-cost programs including law and medical degrees would feel its impact most heavily, education experts said. Law students on average borrowed $146,800 in 2020, the most recent data from AccessLex Institute shows — the highest outside of medical degree programs. The percentage of law students who took out loans for law schools was 76%, up from 71% four years earlier, according to AccessLex. The average annual tuition at private law schools was $57,860 in 2024, while public school tuition was an average $31,431, the AccessLex data shows, though financial aid brings those totals down for many students. Proponents of capping loans say the current system has incentivized colleges and universities to increase tuition and has made it too easy for students to enroll in programs with low employment outcomes at taxpayers' expense. Graduates are then saddled with decades of student loan payments. "By capping inflationary graduate loan programs, we prevent students from overborrowing and put downward pressure on rising college costs," said U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and a Republican, in an email to Reuters last week. The cap would be felt most deeply at low-ranked and unranked law schools because some students will struggle to secure private loans, said AccessLex President Chris Chapman, whose organization previously issued private graduate loans but is now a nonprofit advocate for law school access and affordability. Those law schools tend to have lower employment rates and higher borrowing — red flags for lenders. Lenders are likely to examine applicants' grades and scholarships in addition to their job prospects and finances, Chapman said, and those deemed too risky could be denied. Particularly vulnerable are less-affluent students who may have trouble securing loan co-signers, said University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean Austen Parrish. A 2023 analysis, opens new tab of law school debt-to-income ratios by Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller had found that at more than a quarter of American Bar Association-accredited law schools, graduates had a median cumulative debt that was more than twice their annual income one year after graduation. For example, the median debt of graduates of unranked Cooley Law School, which has campuses in Lansing, Michigan, and Tampa, Florida, was $202,668, while their median earnings were $40,967, the study showed. Cooley did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, also unranked, had a median debt of $193,041 and median $48,790 in annual earnings, the study found. The school declined to comment. Lower-ranked and unranked law schools in general have higher minority and first-generation enrollment. A study, opens new tab by the Law School Admission Council found that minority students made up 42% of 2024's first-year class among the top quarter of schools when grouped by their selectivity, but 51% at the bottom quarter of schools. Cooley's most recent first-year class was 36% students of color — just below the national average of 37% — while Atlanta's John Marshall was much higher at nearly 76%, American Bar Association data shows. If students at lower-ranked and unranked law schools hit the cap but can't secure private loans or enough financial aid, it could mean a decline in law student racial and socioeconomic diversity, said Ronald Weich, dean of Seton Hall University School of Law — a private law school with $67,300 in annual tuition and a first-year class that was nearly 38% students of color in 2024. 'This will make the profession less inclusive,' Weich said. Read more: US Education Department closure imperils law school finances, deans say Stanford Law to fund student loan alternative based on grads' future earnings
CBC
17-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Mother-daughter lawyers say it 'means everything' to be called to the bar together
When it comes to newly-minted lawyers Lori Butler and her daughter Megan Delaronde, it's hard to say who followed in whose footsteps. Butler says watching her daughter go to law school inspired her do the same. But Delaronde says it was her mother's encouragement and tenacity that motivated her to enrol in the first place. Ultimately, their journeys led to the same place. The Kitchener, Ont., mother-daughter duo were called to the bar together on Monday during a ceremony in London, Ont., in what's believed to be a provincial first. "It's incredible to be experiencing becoming a lawyer at all," Delaronde, 28, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "But to do it alongside my mother, who is my inspiration, the reason that I did this in the first place, it just means everything." Making history 'a fun little side note' Delaronde graduated from York University's Osgoode Hall in Toronto 2023, while Butler, who started a year later, graduated from the University of Windsor's Faculty of Law in 2024. Because Delaronde took longer with her final articling and bar exam preparation, the pair ended up in a position to officially become practicing lawyers at the same time. The Law Society of Ontario told CBC this is its first record of a mother and daughter joining the bar together. "We are proud to celebrate this inspiring moment and reflect on the diverse journeys individuals take to join the legal profession, and the strength of family and community in supporting those paths," Peter Wardle, the society's treasurer, said in an emailed statement. Asked how it feels to be first, Delaronde said the real reward was seeing all their hard work and studying pay off. "The making history part is a fun little side note for us," she said. My mother is the most capable woman that I know. There was no doubt in my mind that if she made the leap and decided to do it, we would be here one day. - Megan Delaronde, lawyer Just as they inspired each other to pursue careers in law, the women also helped lift each other up throughout the process. Delaronde, a year ahead in law school, would frequently share her notes and answer her mom's questions. "She really helped me a lot," Butler said. Those roles reversed when Butler took the bar exam first, then helped Delaronde prepare. "Exams are just gruelling," Delaronde said. "So having her first-hand experience of what it would be like to write them, and some of her assistance on that, was really valuable." Getting to work While Delaronde is just starting out in her career, Butler, who is in her 60s, has had a lot of experience in the workforce. She's been a real estate agent and wedding officiant. She once founded a martial arts club. And, most recently, she worked as a teacher. Butler doesn't like to be idle, she says, so as she was nearing retirement, she knew it was time to make another move. "I certainly wasn't going to retire and do nothing," she said. "Teachers don't teach into their 90s but lots of lawyers do." Delaronde says she was immediately supportive of her mom's decision. "I encouraged her to do it," she said. "My mother is the smartest woman that I know. My mother is the most capable woman that I know. There was no doubt in my mind that if she made the leap and decided to do it, we would be here one day." When Butler opened her acceptance letter, the two women cried together in the kitchen. "Getting into law school, it's like winning the lottery," Butler told CBC Radio's Afternoon Drive. Delaronde believes her mother's incredible ability to see the good in everyone will serve her well in the field, while Butler says her daughter's compassion and ability to think quickly on her feet will be a great asset in the courtroom. "We can look at anybody who is in the criminal system and say, 'Hey, they're but for the grace of God go I,'" Butler told CBC Radio's Afternoon Drive in London. "There's an awful lot of people that we meet who have gotten in trouble with the law and they really did not intend to." That's why, after a night of celebrating with their family, the two women immediately got to work. Delaronde is a new associate at Cooper Lord Law, a criminal law firm in Kitchener, while Butler is working with X-Copper, a legal services team for Canadians facing traffic tickets, criminal charges, and commercial vehicle offences. "Justice just waits for no one," Delaronde said. "Lawyers are here to help. And I think for both of us, it felt right to be jumping right in and getting to work."
Wall Street Journal
04-06-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
How Cheating Spreads at Law Schools
When Noah Werksman began his first final exam in law school, the classroom was half-empty. 'There were 60, maybe 70 people in our cohort,' he says in an interview. 'At least 30 students were missing.' Mr. Werksman, 27, came to Pepperdine Caruso School of Law in Malibu, Calif., in the summer of 2023. 'It was what we call a racehorse exam,' he says of the final. 'It's pretty guaranteed you're not going to finish, but you have to move as fast as possible and rack up as many points as you can.'
